Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is scheduled for a May 2014 release (Picture: File)

The latest adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which has proven controversial with fans, will begin filming in New York this April.

Film industry insider Production Weekly broke the news, tweeting: ‘Principle photography on TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, is scheduled to begin this April in New York.’

The film has been maligned before even entering production, with fans voicing concerns after it emerged that Transformers director Michael Bay was hoping to re-imagine the crime-fighting turtles as aliens.

Worries were compounded by a weak script for the film that leaked online, though Bay was quick to insist that it was not the finished screenplay.

TMNT will film primarily in New York (Picture: Twitter)

‘The leaked script for Ninja Turtles that different sites continue to comment on was written well before I… was involved with the project. That script saw the shredder a long time ago.’

He went on to defend the project, explaining: ‘Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story.’

Robbie Rist, who voiced Michaelangelo in the original Ninja Turtles series, has accused Bay of ‘sodomising’ the cult classic.